And what of the left in Europe? May 23, 2014

Already some indications coming through. It’s always a good day to see Geert Wilders and his crew pushed back, and I’ve got to admit a fondness for the Socialist Party in the Netherlands so good to see them gaining seats (by the way, does anyone know the story as to why one of their MEPs jumped ship to Independent Socialist a year or two back?).

In Britain there’s interesting things happening. I may be wrong, but I suspect the narrative will actually be better for Labour by the end of the weekend than now, and while it’s clear UKIP is doing relatively well (and likely to do very well at European level) it’s difficult not to think back to previous ‘breakthrough’s’ experienced by the Green Party there amongst others and see this as fundamentally a protest vote with much less impact on national politics than might be thought. Though, results may make a mockery of that analysis.

But it’s a big continent out there and lots happening so any straws in the wind are very welcome in relation to that.

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The Workers’ Party of Belgium I’d say a one to watch as the last Ipsos poll for the le soir newspaper had them at 8.3% in Wallonia. A danger there is that there are only 8 seats in the francophone electoral college, so touch and go. Still, looking good for them in the general and regional elections happening on the same day.

For anyone interested in following the results of the Belgian Federal and Regional elections can do so at the link below. Looking good for the Workers’ Party there if the early numbers are to be believed.

The SP are interesting. Led by a very endearing and humble leader they are doing better each election.

However the Irish voter should not think it’s similar to our socialist party. It is a left wing party but it’s clearly an adamantly against EU. It is a left wing party but it’s adamant that the culture of the Netherlands is Dutch culture.

It’s also against the neo liberal character of the EU and similarly argues for a more restrictive immigration policy because they believe it’s purpose is to undermine labour for the benefit of Capital.

They are very involved now about non Dutch truck drivers undermining the local drivers.

On the question of kartika liotard she said there was intimidatuon They said she was not to work with. They also had a t the crux a debate about the contribution of salaries to the party. Don’t got the full story there though. It got nasty though.

It is also useful to see why Wilders lost so heavy. 65% of his voters stayed at home. There is a very fine line between saying out of Europe and persuading your voter to put you in there. Send me to Westminster to reduce westministers influence.

Syriza took 26.7% of the vote, ahead of the conservative New Democracy which took 22.8%, the interior ministry predicted. The Socialist PASOK party’s Olive alliance secured 8.1%, with the far-right Golden Dawn finishing third with 9.3%.

So PASOK have done surprisingly well (or not as disastrously as expected). Doubtless the total of 31% for government parties will be spun as some kind of legitimation.

HArd to know how to take the Spanish <a href="https://twitter.com/eldiarioes/status/470671229759012866"projections which have the PP winning (but well down) ahead of POSE (also well down) and then IU, the United Left, third – but not as close to the others as they’d have hoped. However, the big news is that Podemos (We Can), a new party which grew out of the Indignados movement, appears to have come fourth. (I didn’t have a vote because of a cock-up: if I’d had one, I was undecided whether to vote for IU or Podemos.)

It’s complicated to say precisely who’s left and who’s right, and Catalonia and Euskadi complicate matters, but even if we count UPyD, the Spanish PD, as right, which is not entirely fair, I don’t see that the right overall beat the left. No far right representation at all, by the way.

More good than bad.

Campaign most noticeable for sexist remarks from the PP campaign leader, Cañete, for which he eventally had to apologise, and an amazingly stupid intervention from Felipe González who mooted a possible future PP/PSOE alliance, which may play well among the European great and good, but is the last thing PSOE want to have put about given how many of their supporters fail to distinguish them from the PP.